Quote:
Originally Posted by #-3
There is no point where the earths gravity stops. everything that has ever been on earth will continue to accelerate towards earth, it's just something might gain an equal or greater acceleration in different directions.
I believe that L2 the basically put it in an orbit around the sun that would normally be unsustainable, but the earths gravity pulls it along.
So JWST will forever be accelerating towards the sun at 274 m/s2 and towards earth at 9.81 m/s2 and will have an angular momentum just a little bit faster than earths. Right now the Sun and the Earth are still slowing it down, the goal is it's go the exact speed and momentum as it falls into that pocket that those 3 numbers balance out, and keep it basically at a fixed distance from earth with a fixed speed around the sun, sans fuel.
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You've got those numbers wrong. Acceleration due to gravity on the surface of the Earth is 9.81, but gravity is calculated g = G*M/R^2, where R is distance between objects. So it decreases the further from Earth you are. It is nowhere near 9.81 for JWST, but you could do the math easily.